MARTIN, François-Xavier (1762-1846, Editor)

A Collection of the Statutes of the Parliament of England in Force in the State of North-Carolina

Newbern, North Carolina: Published According to a Resolve of the General Assembly by François-Xavier Martin, Esq. Counsellor at Law; From the Editor's Press, 1792. 4to. (8 1/3 x 6 1/4 inches). First edition. [1]² 2-6² 7-1 A-5O² [5P]². [i]-xxvi [1]-424 [4]. 454 pp. Preface, Table of Chapters, Collection of Statutes of England, Appendix, Index, Errata, Subscribers' List. Woodcut printer's ornament.

Bound to style in gilt-ruled half-calf and marbled boards, spine gilt-ruled into six compartments with gilt-lettered red morocco lettering-piece in second, on laid paper

Provenance: Signature of James C. Dobbin (1814-1857), United States Secretary of the Navy (1853-1857) and North Carolina Speaker of the House (1850-1852).

A historically significant compilation of British laws still enforced in North Carolina a decade after the American Revolution. This handsome example is from the library of the United States Secretary of the Navy and Speaker of the North Carolina House James C. Dobbins.

An important legal reference for the early laws of the state, this collection prints all the British laws in force in North Carolina ten years after the end of the American Revolution. Most of the penal and many of the civil laws in the state were based on Parliamentary statute and British custom, and Martin, who produced contemporary volumes on the laws of North Carolina, goes all the way back to the era of the Magna Carta. He includes an extensive table of contents and index. There were fewer than one hundred and ten original subscribers to the work listed, and it was likely not printed in a quantity much larger than that original demand. "Some states simply repealed all British statutes. In other states, where British statutes were too numerous to repeal in toto or to adopt specifically, jurists, sometimes with legislative sanction, and sometimes without, compiled volumes of British statutes that they considered applicable to American conditions. The purposes of these volumes was the same as that of compilations of the states' own statutes. So, wrote the author of a similar volume on Georgia, 'Now the laws are placed within the power of everyman, and all may know the statute law who chose to read it.'" [Maxeiner] "Another important publication was undertaken as an enterprise by François Xavier Martin, New Bern printer, who petitioned the General Assembly of 1790 to allow him 'a small advance on his giving security' to enable him to publish a collection of these statutes of Great Britain which were then in force in the state. The assembly allowed him an advance of 100 pounds. He described the projected volume as 'a quarto of demy-paper," priced at 15 shillings for every hundred pages." [Valentine]

Evans 24627. Iredell and Battle, p.xii. Maxeiner, Failures of American Methods of Lawmaking in Historical and Comparative Perspectives, p.52. McMurtrie 180. Sabin 44870. Valentine, "Libraries and Print Culture in Early North Carolina," North Carolina Historical Review, Vol.82, No.3, (July 2005), pp.293-325.

Item #29623

Price: $2,800.00